Internal Revenue Service auditors continue to target middle-income earners despite promises by the president and his team to turn agents loose on those earning $400,000 and higher.
Its budget swelled $80 billion by Democrats hopeful of exposing fraud by the rich, a new audit shows that agents are still mostly chasing down families and businesses with incomes of $200,000 or less, half the president’s promised target.
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What’s more, the Treasury inspector general report said that the IRS hasn’t even expanded auditor training to help new agents uncover the more sophisticated tricks used by higher-income earners to dodge taxes.
“Our analysis disclosed no significant increase in the number of high-income individual return audits,” said the inspector general.
“Despite congressional encouragement to examine individual high earners and the former Treasury secretary’s directive, most examinations were not focused on high-income taxpayers,” it added.
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For example, the audit found that 75% of audits were on returns showing “total positive income” at less than $200,000.
The IRS, said the audit, has had trouble keeping agents and hiring new ones. And the bottom line of that and its failure to refocus on higher income returns, said the inspector general, is that “we see no direct effort to increase examinations of individual high earners.”
